Ferrocene-based supramolecular structures and their applications in electrochemical responsive systems

Electrochemical stimuli have attracted much attention in recent years as they are simple, clean and can be widely applied in biological systems and material science. As one type of common guest molecules, ferrocene and its derivatives have been well studied with different host molecules, mainly including cyclodextrins, cucurbiturils, pillararenes and calixarenes. This article generally summarizes the recent work on the host–guest interactions between ferrocene derivatives and their host molecules, as well as various supramolecular systems based on these interactions. In addition, the development and outlook of electrochemical responsive systems are also discussed.